


Snare

by FaintlyMacabre



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [8]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alcohol, But listen. It gets Dicey, Changing Tenses, Dubious Consent, Gen, Handcuffs, Heist, Honeypot Job, Junoverse | Juno Steel Universe, Making Out, No Sex, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Other, POV First Person, POV Juno Steel, See notes for more detail on the tags!, chained to a bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:28:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25439221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaintlyMacabre/pseuds/FaintlyMacabre
Summary: If, for whatever reason, you were to ask Juno Steel, he would tell you that no, seduction was not his wheelhouse. If he were feeling chatty, he'd probably tell you, without much exaggeration, that back on Mars, a night out had an even chance of ending in a bar fight as in a hookup. He was abrasive, and brash, and naturally unpleasant.But under certain circumstances, he can give it a shot. It just may not go as planned.
Relationships: Juno Steel/Original Character(s), Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1702642
Comments: 1
Kudos: 64
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	Snare

**Author's Note:**

> Bad Things Happen Bingo time again! lilyistryingherbest requested Chained to a Bed with anyone on the Carte Blanche or Damien. Of course I picked Juno "Listen, when you get tied up as often as I do" Steel.
> 
> CW: Okay. The warnings for this one sure are something, so if **any** of the tags give you pause, **please** check the warnings in the **end notes**. I was attempting to be thorough and I got into spoilers.

If, for whatever reason, you were to ask me, I’d tell you that no, I’m not exactly a natural seductress. (Also, never ask me that. It’d be weird.) I’m not the type of lady who can charm my way into someone’s bed or even their good graces. I’ve got _just_ enough charisma to be annoying.

Again, don’t ask me. But you know who maybe should have?

Buddy Aurinko.

Maybe if she had, I wouldn’t be lying here, chained to a bed in an unexpectedly swanky hotel room, but really, it wouldn't be fair to put all the blame on Buddy. Let me start at the beginning. My name’s Juno Steel. I was a private eye, who was a cop, who became a thief, and if most of the people I left behind in Hyperion City could see where my life has taken me, they wouldn’t bat an eye. Or if they did, the eye they batted would be mine.

Our crew's on a "relocation" mission to a little satellite hotel orbiting Pluto. The creep who runs this place is kind of a hoarder, and his is the kind of hotel where dreams (and, according to rumor, the occasional interspace traveler) go to die. The job was basically show up, rob a terrible person, get out of dodge. There was just one thing I didn’t like about this plan.

“Remind me why I’m doing this again?” I leaned back against the high top table, holding a drink like a lifeline in one hand and fighting the urge to push away the hair covering my eyepatch with the other.

“It’s because you’re so incredibly charming, love.” I jumped a little. That wasn’t the voice I’d expected to hear.

“Ransom?” I hissed. “Where’s Buddy?”

“Not happy to hear my voice, Juno?” The question was all tease and no hurt. “The captain thought I could use some practice working behind the scenes.”

Well, I knew what that meant. “So, you got bored?”

“When I have you to worry about?” Nureyev quipped. “You’ll forgive me my caution; you do have such a talent for getting into trouble.”

“Which brings me back around to my question.”

“You are playing this role because both Buddy and Ransom are wanted by the Plutonian government, and because the rest of us are unsuited to this kind of undercover work.”

“Big Guy! When did you connect to this line?” I'd nearly choked on my drink when Jet’s voice had rumbled into my head.

“I have been connected this whole time, since I dropped you off.”

“And you didn’t think to say anything?”

“There was nothing to say,” Jet said. “Talking would only have been a distraction.”

“You must admit, you do fit the profile of our mark’s usual type,” Nureyev said. I didn’t have to admit any such thing, but I knew. Osric Salazar, multi-millionaire, hotelier and general misanthropist, liked his partners more rough than refined, more sour than sweet; in the slinky dress that showed off a fair number of my scars and holding a double shot of whiskey that was threatening to vanish into thin air, I fit the type pretty neatly. It was maybe the only thing I’d ever fit into neatly in my life.

“Yeah, yeah, the role was made for me,” I said over the glass. “The part I’m not thrilled about is where I’m the bait.”

“'Bait' is such a strong word, dear,” Nureyev said. “This is really more of a honeypot job.” His voice sounded neutral, but carefully so. To anyone else, I'm sure he would have sounded genuinely calm, but there was something in his diction that made me think he was less assured than he let on.

“Well, either way, I’m pretty much just a piece of meat on a string—”

“The target is approaching on your three o’clock,” Jet cut in. “Do not turn quickly; it appears he is trying to stay in your blind spot.”

I made myself sip at the drink and lean on the table as though I wasn’t about to be ambushed.

“Don’t believe I’ve seen you around here before.” The voice was like honey over coffee grounds, and I probably would have liked it if it hadn’t belonged to the owner of this... fine establishment. The Renegade’s Arms was just far enough from everywhere that people only went there when they had nowhere else to be and just enough of a dive that it wasn’t frequented by anyone rich or flashy enough for people to make a fuss if they vanished. 

“There’s a first time for everything,” I said, refusing to turn and look.

“Let’s hope there’s a second one, too.” Salazar walked around the table and into my field of vision, but… a little higher. He was a wall of a person, reminding me of Pilot Pereyra, who’d used their intimidating size and demeanor to cow every would-be opponent into submission for years as mayor. I hoped it would be easier to exploit Salazar’s weakness than it had Pereyra’s; that walk in the desert had been no walk in the park.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I said, and ignored the rise of Salazar’s eyebrows as I knocked the rest of my drink back. “You gonna buy a lady a drink?”

“Oh, sugar, it’s on the house.” I tried not to flinch at the hand that Salazar planted on my back, which steered me the short distance to the bar. “Another?”

“Whiskey, neat,” I said, setting the empty glass down on the bar.

“Make it a double,” Salazar told the bartender. “Top shelf.” The bartender nodded and once again, all the bastard’s attention was on me. Great.

“So, what’s a pretty lady like you doing in a place like mine?” Salazar purred. The sound sent chills down my spine, but definitely not in the way Salazar intended. Well, probably.

“Currently, getting drunk for free,” I said. “So, thanks for that.”

“I’d take it as a personal offense to find out that a gorgeous creature like you would ever have to buy his own drinks.”

“If you wait there, I can give you a whole list of people I know who’ve personally offended you,” I said.

“Gorgeous _and_ funny,” Salazar said, looking me up and down in a way that made me want to wash with sandpaper.

I did the next best thing and downed my drink. “Thirsty, too.” Salazar raised a hand and gestured to the bartender, who got me another. “So this is your place?”

“I haven’t exactly made it a secret,” he said, looming closer.

“I hear people do small talk,” I said, “you know, early in their acquaintance.”

“So you’re sticking around?” Salazar said. He was even closer now, and he smelled aggressively like mint and aftershave. It wasn’t terrible, and everything was going according to plan, but knowing who this person was, I felt kind of queasy about it. In my earpiece, barely audible, Nureyev huffed out a short, sharp breath.

“Not like I got anywhere else to go.” I looked down into my drink while I said it, trying to look like like I wasn't angling for anything more than a bed for the night and someone to help me keep it warm.

“I wish I were sorry to hear that,” he said, practically in my ear. “But really, the way I see it? Whoever you’re running from, their loss is my gain.”

I turned to look at him again and all I saw was teeth. I couldn’t help but recall the first time I’d seen Nureyev, when he was just Rex Glass to me, and the smile that looked like he could rip me apart, easy and natural as breathing. This was different. Salazar’s teeth were big and blunt, like tombstones; it would take him some work to tear into you and he’d enjoy it.

Hopefully he’d take my focus on his mouth as interest rather than self-preservation.

I’d told Buddy I was all right to kiss a mark if the job demanded it, and I was. I’d told her I was all right to do more than that if I knew about the possibility beforehand, though hopefully in this case the neurotoxin-laden lipstick I was wearing would do its job before that became an option. Nureyev and I had talked about it—we were both coming at this with our separate and collective baggage, but honestly, I’d thought it would be a harder conversation to have. We decided that if it was the best plan we had and if whoever was on the job was comfortable, it was all aboveboard.

When Salazar pushed the door to his apartment closed and then pushed me up against it to kiss me, though, I couldn’t think of anything but Nureyev on the other side of my earpiece. If he was still there. I definitely wouldn’t blame him if he’d decided to hand it off to someone else.

Salazar kissed like he was fighting, and I grabbed the collar of his shirt so I’d be ready if it swung in that direction. One of his hands slid up my thigh, taking the hem of the dress with it. I stopped him when he got to my hip.

“Not,” I said against his mouth, “doing this against the door.” At the very least, the farther into his apartment we went, the longer he’d be distracted. And it gave the lipstick a few extra seconds to work. Salazar was a big guy, it might take a bit.

The bed was in the next room. It was big, covered in a rich-looking comforter and sheets that probably had some kind of thread count, with a huge ornate headboard, from which hung a—Jesus Christ. He had a pair of cuffs threaded through it. I was starting to rethink the door.

I didn’t get a real good look at it after that because Salazar spun me around and walked me back until my knees hit the edge of the bed. He climbed over me, biting and sucking at my neck, and I had a moment to just hope this lipstick was as unlikely to re-transfer as Buddy said it was, before I felt his teeth moving up to my ear. The ear with the earpiece. The earpiece I was using to stay in contact with my fellow crewmembers for the purpose of robbing the person who was currently getting real familiar with my earlobe.

“Hey, uh, no,” I said, like a professional, “my earring—”

“Oh,” he said, pulling back, and I tried not to sigh with relief. “Let me get that for you.” And he _fucking took it off_. The only positive side to the situation was that it really was a gorgeous ear cuff with a hidden wireless transmitter and he didn’t seem to suspect. He put it on the bedside table and picked up where he left off. And I thought, “Maybe it’ll be fine, maybe they won’t need to contact me for a while, maybe they get what they need and I sneak out while he’s unconscious and that’s that, job well—” A siren cut off the “done.”

Salazar sighed, hot on my neck. “I hate to leave you here, gorgeous—”

“Then don’t,” I said.

He shook his head. “Nothing else for it.”

“Uh, hey, but wait,” I said. “If the fire alarm’s going off, shouldn’t I be getting out of here too?”

“It’s not the fire alarm,” he said, getting up and smoothing out his clothes. “It’s the burglar alarm.”

Yeah, I’d been afraid of that. “Okay, well, if there are dangerous burglars around, maybe I don’t want to be a sitting duck.”

“Oh, if that’s what you’re worried about, darlin’, don’t be.” He came back and I thought for a second that it had worked, turned out I was pretty good at distractions after all. He took my hands and kissed me, and yeah, I actually felt kind of smug about my performance right up until the cuffs closed around my wrists.

“What,” I said.

“Didn’t want to bring these into play so soon, but we adapt, don’t we, sugar?” he said, with a fucking wink. “I can’t have you running off before I get back. Don’t worry, I’ll lock you up safe as houses.” I wished a house would fall on him.

He took a handgun out of a drawer, waved at me without looking back, and then he was gone. I heard the click of two locks, and that was the last I saw of Salazar.

So now you’re all caught up.

I wait a few seconds before turning my head in the direction of my removed earpiece and saying, “Hey, he cuffed me to the bed, get me out of here.” I have no way of knowing if anyone is responding, or even if they can hear me at all. All I have is this dress, a pair of stupid strappy heels (what _is_ it with Buddy and putting me in six-inch heels?), and zero arm mobility. Well, not quite zero. I look up at the headboard. It isn’t metal, at least, but it doesn’t look cheap either. It’s either wood or painted to look like it, and if it is paint, it's been expertly applied, which points to good quality. If Nureyev were here, he’d have a lockpick in his sleeve or metal-tipped nails or something useful, but he’s not, so I pull myself up to sit against the headboard and start scraping the chain against the back of it to try to wear through.

“That alarm’s still going,” I say through gritted teeth as I try to saw through the headboard. I hope they can hear me, but even if they can’t, it helps to think they might. “Means Salazar's probably knocked out, definitely hasn’t resolved the situation, so I guess you’re still holding your own. In case you’re done before I get out of these, I’m in Salazar’s quarters, the door past the stairs, in the second room. Two locks on the door.” The cuffs are chafing my wrists, but I just clench my fists and try to go faster. “God I hope you get here soon, this is the least efficient way to get out of this but it’s all I’ve got.” The alarm shuts off and instinctively, I stop moving. It’s too quiet to move.

“Damn it, whoever’s listening, say something!” I hiss. I’m getting uncomfortably close to panic. “Yell, come on, just say something!” I feel trapped in these shoes and this dress and these fucking handcuffs and so I start moving again, pulling the chain forward like I could break clean through the damn headboard. It doesn’t work, just like I know it won’t, but I can’t do anything else. I can’t do anything. I can’t do this. I can’t do this.

In the quiet, I hear the locks click and I freeze again. If it’s Salazar… he might suspect I’m part of this. Is he coming back to kill me? I get my legs over the side of the bed just for solid ground underneath me, the smallest illusion of control. It puts my arms at an even more uncomfortable angle, but they were never going to do me any good here anyway.

I can’t hear footsteps, and I don't know what the hell that means. I feel myself start to spiral again until I see Vespa in the doorway with a duffel bag.

“Oh, thank god.” Should have known—of course the assassin’s not going to make a sound. I’m sure I’d feel weirder about her seeing me like this if I weren’t so relieved.

“Where’s the key?” she says, looking right, left, up, right again, checking for… security cameras, maybe?

“I don’t know!” I say. I feel like my body hasn’t caught up to my brain, which hasn’t caught up to my mouth. Adrenaline is still rushing through me—it couldn’t shut itself off the instant I knew I was saved, but I’ve apparently started to autopilot into our usual dynamic. “He didn’t exactly give me a tour. ‘Hey, just to be on the safe side, here’s the key to the cuffs I just surprised you with, also I’m definitely not going to murder you—’”

“Shut up, Steel,” she mutters. She’s already got the drawer of the little side table open and there’s the key. I guess it’s not something he really has to hide. In a second, my wrists are free. “Come on, Sikuliaq’s got the car running.”

I grab the ear cuff and slide it back into place while we get out of there.

“Mistah Steel oh my god please don’t be dead or hurt, say something _please_ ,” Rita’s sobbing into my ear.

“Let's go, Steel," Vespa whispers over her shoulder. I nod and let my eye focus on the green shock of her hair to follow her out as I turn my attention back to Rita before I worry her into an early grave.

“Rita,” I say, “Rita, I’m okay. I’m out. Vespa got me.”

“Boss?” she says, sniffling. “That you?”

“It’s me,” I say. “I’m sorry I worried you.”

“Only I could hear you and I was trying to tell you Mistah Jet and Miss Vespa were on their way and you didn’t answer and you sounded so scared—”

Yeah, I don’t want to think about that right now. “I’m okay. We’re headed back to you.” Vespa's taking us out the fire exit, in the opposite direction of the guest area, and there's Jet, just like she said. We get in the backseat and drive away into the night as the last of my adrenaline gives up the ghost and I let the now-familiar smell of the car ground me.

_I'm okay. I'm going home._

**Author's Note:**

> CW: Dubious consent—I'd describe it as uninformed consent on the part of one character, and unenthusiastic consent on the part of the other. Both are deciding to do what they're doing under their own steam, but for sketchy reasons. Also, as part of the plan, Juno drugs the antagonist to knock him out so he'll be out of the way for their heist. I didn't write sexual assault, but Juno experiences a loss of control that he definitely does not want to be experiencing, and panics as a result. The feeling/themes are similar, so if that's a no-go, totally get it, turn back now, take care of yourself!  
> Also, alcohol, references to murder, and canon-typical quippy tone (may be jarring to some readers, given the subject matter).  
> \---  
> Thanks for reading! Sequel to this coming soon, and in the meantime, if you like, I'm @princegabriel on Tumblr—you can check out my bingo card and also all the cat pictures I reblog!


End file.
